8.
in•for•ma•tion ar•chi•tec•ture n
The structural design of information systems,
interactive services, and user experiences.
The organization, search, and navigation systems
that help people to complete tasks, find what they
need, and understand what they’ve found.

9.
The fast parts learn, propose, and
absorb shocks; the slow parts
remember, integrate, and constrain.
The fast parts get all the attention.
The slow parts have all the power.
Steward Brand on “Pace Layering”

14.
There is one timeless way of building.
It is thousands of years old, and the same
today as it has always been.
The great traditional buildings of the past,
the villages and tents and temples in
which man feels at home, have always
been made by people who were very close
to the center of this way.
It is not possible to make great buildings,
or great towns, beautiful places, places
where you feel yourself, places where you
feel alive, except by following this way.
And, as you will see, this way will lead
anyone who looks for it to buildings
which are themselves as ancient in
their form, as the trees and hills,
and as our faces are.
The Timeless Way of Building
Christopher Alexander
15

58.
It is difficult to overstate the extent to which most managers and the
people who advise them believe in the redemptive power of rewards.
Rewards undermine the processes they are intended to enhance.
Extrinsic motivators do not alter the attitudes underlying behaviors.
People who do exceptional work may be glad to be paid and even
more glad to be well paid, but they do not work to collect a paycheck.
They work because they love what they do.
Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work by Alfie Kohn (1993)
http://hbr.org/archive-toc/BR9309
63

59.
The building of the railroads
(and the telegraph system)
made possible this growth of
the great industrial enterprise
(from about 1850 to 1950).
“The need (for divisionalization
and decentralization) did not
result from the larger size of the
enterprise per se. It came rather
from the increasing diversity
and complexity of decisions that
senior managers had to make.”
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1962)
64

61.
“Customers are adopting
disruptive technologies faster
than companies can adapt.”
“The individuals who make
up the company must be fully
conscious of the job that they
are doing for customers…
(and of) the jobs customers
are trying to do.”
66

62.
Pods
Small, agile, autonomous
teams that are “authorized to
represent the company and
deliver results to customers.”
Pods are flexible, fast,
scalable, and resilient.
Pods are designed so that
decisions and changes can be
made as quickly and as close
to customers as possible.
67

63.
“A platform is a government.”
“When it comes to language, protocols, culture, and values,
you don’t want variability, you want consistency.”
“Backbone activities are about coordination and consistency.
Backbones should be as lightweight as possible.”
68

66.
Systems thinking looks at relationships
(rather than unrelated objects), connectedness,
process (rather than structure), the whole
(rather than just its parts), the patterns (rather
than the contents) of a system, and context.
Thinking systematically also requires
several shifts in perception, which lead in
turn to different ways to teach, and
different ways to organize society
71

67.
“There is a problem in discussing systems only
with words. Words and sentences must, by
necessity, come only one a time in linear, logical
order. Systems happen all at once. They are
connected not just in one direction, but in many
directions simultaneously. To discuss them
properly, it is necessary to use a language that
shares some of the same properties as the
phenomena under discussion.”

68.
“If a factory is torn down but the
rationality which produced it is left
standing, then that rationality will
simply produce another factory. If a
revolution destroys a government,
but the systematic patterns of
thought that produced that
government are left intact, then those
patterns will repeat themselves…
There’s so much talk about the
system. And so little understanding.”
73

73.
Fragmentation
Fragmentation into multiple
sites, domains, and identities is
clearly a major problem. Users
don’t know which site to visit
for which purpose.
Findability
Users can’t find what they need
from the home page, but most
users don’t come through the
front door. They enter via a web
search or a deep link, and are
confused by what they find.
Even worse, most never use the
Library, because its resources
aren’t easily findable.

85.
Design for Discovery
“Search is among the
most disruptive
innovations of our time.
It influences what we
buy and where we go. It
shapes how we learn
and what we believe.”
Search
Patterns
Peter Morville & Jeffery Callender
91

86.
Most of the complaints
we get are due to the way
users search; they use
the wrong keywords.
t's
ght. I
t's Ri
Tha
rs!
Yeah.
d Use
Stupi
e
thos
92

126.
Library Portal Survey
According to a survey of students, faculty, and staff,
search and discovery is the #1 problem.
“I think it’s better to have everything in one searching
system than parceled out into different ones.”
“The search is not very smart. You get thousands of
seemingly unrelated responses.”
“(We need) better discovery tools that integrate electronic
articles with books and manuscripts.”
“(The Library should) prioritize search over all else.”
132

127.
Regardless of all the time and effort libraries put
into providing a variety of research tools and
resources on their websites, the literature suggests
that students still prefer to start their research
using Google or some other form of search engine.
It is clear that there is an overwhelming preference
for easy to use, familiar search tools that
transcend education level, discipline of study, and
student demographics.
Discovery Layers and the Distance Student
Jessica Mussell (2012)
133

129.
Information Literacy
Employers claimed that college hires rarely conducted the
thorough research required of them in the workplace.
At worst, some college hires solved problems with a
lightning quick Google search, a scan of the first couple of
pages of results, and a linear answer finding approach.
“I had new graduate hire who only searched for papers on
Google. I said, you’re missing things, you need to use
PubMed, and he responded, ‘Well, I did this quick search,
and that’s what I got.’ But that's not good enough.”
Project Information Literacy: Learning Curve by Alison J. Head (2012)
135

130.
Percent of faculty rating these roles
of the library as important.
Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, Publishers,
and Societies by Roger C. Schonfeld (2010)
136

133.
Gross and Sheridan conducted a usability study
that examined how Summon (“web-scale discovery”)
was used for common library search tasks.
Summon was positioned as the primary search
box on the library’s home page for the study.
They found that the single search box was
employed for 80% of the assigned tasks.
How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box
Lown, Sierra, Boyer (2013)
139

134.
Use of full-text online content dramatically
increased in the year following implementation.
Librarians found they could focus instruction
less on choosing a database or catalog and more
on refining a search, research as an iterative
process, and other high level search skills.
The Impact of Serial Solutions’ Summon on
Information Literacy Instruction
Stephanie Buck and Margaret Mellinger (2011)
140

135.
The search box became an obstacle in…
questions where it should not have been used.
The search box was viewed as an allencompassing search of the entire site.
Students searched for administrative
information, research guides, and podcasts.
How Users Search the Library from a Single Search Box
Lown, Sierra, Boyer (2013)
141

153.
“After a half-hour, a three-tone alert sounds…If the
bottle still has not been opened, the system makes an
automated reminder phone call to the patient or a
caregiver. The GlowCap system compiles adherence data
which anyone can be authorized to track. That way the
doctor can make sure Gramps stays on his meds.”
160

155.
find·a·bil·i·ty n
The quality of being locatable or
navigable.
The degree to which an object is
easy to discover or locate.
The degree to which a system or
environment supports wayfinding,
navigation, and retrieval.
am·bi·ent adj
Surrounding; encircling;
enveloping (e.g., ambient air)
the ability to find anyone or anything
from anywhere at anytime
162

169.
Today’s “service systems” may include interrelated
sub-systems (e.g., person-to-person, self-service)
across multiple locations, devices, and channels; and
customer satisfaction is “influenced by the extent of
integration and consistency” across those channels.
Bridging the “Front Stage” and “Back Stage” in Service System
Design by Robert J. Glushko and Lindsay Tabas
176